by Joshua Guess
In the minute or so it took the freshly awakened marauders to sort things out, the remaining undead from the hill made it to the edge of the ring.
Take a human being, bred by tens of thousands of years to fear the dark. This may not seem so important a fact, but consider this: humans are so deeply afraid of the night and the unknowns it hides that it partially spurred our evolution forward. Our awareness grew, and one of the first technological advancements (arguably the most important of all time) was to harness fire.
Fire, banishing darkness since prehistory.
Take that deeply held fear, genetically hardwired into the response centers of our brains, and add to it a world eviscerated by walking nightmares. In the abstract it becomes clear how devastating such a situation might be to the stability of a hypothetical person.
That handful of undead caught the still-groggy and confused humans with their aeons of fearful breeding at the perfect moment, and they reacted as all organisms should. They defended themselves.
Kell was ready. As soon as those few began to fire at the undead, muzzle flashes blinding them even as they tried to save their own lives, he raised the bow. The three shots he managed to let off during that brief fury of gunfire each disabled a target, or at least as disabled as a person could be with a bladed hunting arrow jutting from their torso.
Reactions were swift, the people in the camp realizing they were under an attack from more than one enemy. Kell saw the slowdown in their shots, their body language telling him they knew some larger problem was afoot, so he dropped the bow.
Not as practiced with guns—indeed, hardly practiced at all—Kell was careful in his aim. The physics were obvious to him in theory as he understood things like barrel lift and recoil as natural consequences of firing a projectile at eight hundred feet per second. As a result, the first shot was true, taking a man in the shoulder. Kell had been aiming at his waist, but he'd take it.
The second went high, but since he was looking down on the group, it still managed to wing a man in the arm. Kell smiled bitterly as the fellow slapped a hand to the wound.
Chaos erupted.
He fired rapidly, pausing every other pull of the trigger to lower his weapon. The first magazine wasn't yet empty when the remaining members of the marauder group zeroed in on his location. A shower of tree bark pattered against his armor as the first of them unloaded in his direction, forcing him to take cover behind the tree.
Trying to remember how many were left, Kell laughed to himself, low and mirthless. There was every chance he was going to die here, but he didn't care. Seeing those men, who were certainly rapists and probably murderers, scurry and fall was deeply satisfying.
In a burst of inspiration, Kell let his laugh off the leash. It turned into a belly-laugh, and the sound of it between shots from the marauders caused them to hesitate, then stop when they realized he was no longer firing at them.
“He's still out there,” one of the marauders said. In the silence following the hail of bullets, his voice cut the night like a razor. “Who the hell are you?”
No reply.
“If you give up now, we'll let you live,” the same man said. “You can walk away from this.”
There were no grumbles at this, no terse reactions. Men who had just seen their friends cut down weren't upset that their (presumed) leader was giving the killer a free pass? Kell laughed again.
“I'm sure you guys say that to all the boys, don't you?” Kell yelled back. Something wild had risen in him, a fierce need to show these men he was not afraid of them. “Tell you what. If you leave now, unarmed and on foot, I won't come after you. That offer is good for about thirty seconds, so take your time.”
The democratic response came in the form of ballistic lead traveling at a much higher speed than his own guns could manage. The tree shuddered beneath his back.
“I'll take that as a no,” Kell said.
He turned around, belly to the trunk of the tree, and edged around just far enough to see. They knew his position but couldn't see fine details so far back. Several marauders were sweeping the area with heavy-duty flashlights, but didn't catch him. One of the men was climbing over the barricade of cars. After a quick reload, Kell fired at the man one-handed. None of the shots connected, but the brave marauder launched himself back over the car instantly.
The trick was to keep them focused on him but not let them leave their position. There was no way to be sure how long it would take, but based on the distances he had observed on his own hill, it wouldn't be long...
And then, like the song of angels, he heard one of the marauders say in a panicked voice, “Oh, FUCK!”
Some of the marauders may have realized Kell had forced them into firing their weapons as a means of attracting the undead, but that knowledge was cold comfort as half of them dove for their vehicles as the other half moved into firing positions.
The result was several vehicles began to move, creating gaps in the wall around them. The zombies moved toward those. Kell took advantage of the mixed reactions to fire several more times into the crowd before slipping the gun back in his holster and melting backward into the woods once more.
He reappeared twenty feet away from his previous spot and several feet farther back. The bow was more effective as a weapon for him, and he took his time finding targets.
There were at least two dozen undead swarming the gaps created by the fleeing marauders. Kell had no urge to stop them; it just left fewer people for him to worry about. Instead he focused on those who stood and fought, a small part of him marveling at the determination and creativity of those men. Terrible and deserving of death they might be, but they were survivors. Had it only been the undead they faced, they might have made it.
Instead, abandoned by their comrades, outnumbered at least five to one, and being picked off one by one, they died. He didn't even manage to kill any of them, he was fairly sure. A man can't keep his attention focused on fighting off a swarm when an arrow suddenly sprouts from his thigh. In a fight with a zombie, any distraction is potentially fatal.
Kell provided all the distractions needed.
Hours passed as he leaned against a tree, watching the undead eat their grisly meals. He pulled jerky from his pouch and chewed mechanically, not tasting the meat at all as it passed from his mouth on its journey to his stomach. Fatigue and pain fought for the number one spot in his brain as the adrenaline wore off and half a day of stress and activity caught up with him.
More than anything, he wanted to sleep. But there were still hours to go before he could think about crossing that bridge.
More undead showed up as time passed, and Kell witnessed an interesting phenomenon: territorial dispute. None of the injured marauders had managed to rise, though he was sure they reanimated. Their musculature was mostly eaten by that point, so they missed out on the finer aspects of two groups of zombies fighting over the same food.
Some of the newcomers stayed, but most were rebuffed by the original group. Those that left followed the trails of the cowardly marauders (in Kell's mind a recursive phrase) while the rest finished up their meals.
The corpses of the marauders weren't stripped to the bone, but what had been taken was still more meat than he would have imagined even two dozen people could keep down. He remained patiently unmoving, only shifting his weight as needed and occasionally taking more pain medicine. It was maddeningly boring and slow, but he couldn't risk attracting attention. Even well-fed zombies would kill a human being for no other reason than they existed.
He waited.
And waited.
When the undead finally began to disperse, he got tired of waiting.
Replicating a shambling walk wasn't difficult; it was currently the default setting. There were only a few zombies left by the time he made it to the destroyed camp, and two of those he shot with his bow from a distance of less than ten feet. Easy pickings. The last couple realized as the others fell that something was off about the stranger wanderin
g nearby and decided that attacking was the best option.
The first went down with the narrow tip of his axe piercing its brain. Kell actually had to use the thing for support as he killed it. The other attacked him from behind as he wiggled the axe from the face of the first. Kell grabbed onto the arm circled around his chest—the zombie was short—and sat down, hard.
What had been planned as a controlled descent evolved into a messy sprawl as Kell landed on the zombie. A wet sucking sound and a hollow crack followed, the arm he grasped dislocating from the shoulder and snapping in a spiral break.
He sighed. “Heroes don't fall on their ass.”
The last ghoul was quick work, a thrust of his knife as it struggled under his weight. A careful scan of the area around him showed no further signs of the infected.
It would have been easy to fall asleep, then. The thought startled him back to action, because if the exhaustion was bad enough that a dead body resembled a comfy pillow, he wasn't far from delirium.
The door of the first trailer he hobbled to was locked, a heavy-duty padlock that looked like it could take a bullet. Kell put a hand to the door, testing how much play was in it. The gap around the edges was wide enough for him to slip the prybar into.
“Can you hear me in there?” Kell asked in a loud, clear voice.
A muffled reply followed, too weak for him to make out.
“Listen,” he said. “I'm not here to hurt you. I'm going to get you out of there, but the door is locked. The latch is pretty flimsy, so I'm going to try breaking it off. It's going to be loud. Please don't be scared. Okay?”
There was no reply this time. Kell braced himself as he dug the end of his bar deep into the frame. With a sharp heave, the door jumped against the latch. He strained and redoubled his efforts as the screws pulled away from the wood, finally giving out as sweat beaded and ran down his face.
He stowed the bar in its customary place, realizing how threatening he looked. The woman inside would see a giant man covered in weapons. How would she react?
The answer to that question came in the form of a kick to the face.
The smell of food cooking pulled him out of the darkness.
A delicious mixture of aromas battled for supremacy against the pain radiating through his head, but consciousness always came with a price. His eyes opened slowly, sunlight nearly blinding him.
His arms and legs were tied with spectacularly complex knots.
“Goddammit,” he said. “I have got to stop waking up like this.”
A fire roared nearby, and across it a woman with stunning red hair, wavy and thick against pale skin, looked up from her work. There was no fear in her eyes, only caution and curiosity. Beside her another woman labored at some task he couldn't see behind the fire. Her eyes were downcast, but there was a tremble in her shoulders.
“Please don't cry,” Kell said. “I wasn't going to hurt you.”
The other woman, a thin brunette whose hair had been hacked short, shuddered at the sound of his voice.
“Talking to her is only going to upset her more,” the redhead said as she set her work aside and rose, walking around the fire to him. She knelt close enough to hear him if he whispered. “Kate is traumatized. They...” her voice trailed off, thunderclouds on her face. “They visited her more than me. A lot more.”
Kell shook his head, trying to fight back sudden tears. The usual thing would be to tell them how sorry he was for them, how awful it must have been; but they knew it far better than he did. All speaking would do was upset Kate even more.
The redhead relaxed back somewhat. “Tell me what happened here,” she said.
His eyes flicked over to the still-weeping woman, who despite her obvious fear was still working on what he presumed was a meal. In a low voice, Kell explained the previous day in rapid detail. He told her everything. At the end of it she nodded.
“Sorry I knocked you out,” she said. “I couldn't be sure you were telling the truth when you let me out. My name is Laura. Laura Franklin.”
She waited, and it took him a few seconds to remember that people exchanged names.
“I'm K—uh, just K. I don't like my first name.”
Laura's eyes narrowed, but she shrugged. “Suit yourself, I guess. I can't help but notice you have a splint on your leg. Did you sprain your ankle?”
Kell looked down at his right leg and briefly wondered what kind of shape it was in after the day he'd had. “Broke my leg, actually. In fact, I have some pain medicine in my pouch if you wouldn't mind giving me a couple. The leg is killing me. My face could use a break from hurting, too.”
Laura stared at him. “You killed all these guys with a broken leg?”
“When you say it like that, you make it sound so much more badass than it actually was. Mostly I picked them off with my bow and let the zombies do the rest.”
Laura began to untie him. “We heard you out there. We heard what you told them. You're crazy, man. Really.”
Kell held his hands up, palms out. “Do you think it's a good idea to untie me?” he asked in low voice. “It might upset her more if I can move around.”
Laura stared at him, disbelieving. “You're suggesting I leave you like this so Kate doesn't break down into tears? Remember that thing I said about crazy?”
He shrugged. “As long as there aren't any threats, I'm okay with it. To be honest with you, I'm so tired I could probably go right back to sleep. I'm definitely not in any shape to defend myself anyway.”
Laura shook her head. “No, you're getting untied. Look, you saved us. That's a fact. I was already working on those ropes after the last one left my trailer, but I don't have any illusions. I'd have given them a hell of a fight before they killed me, but it would have happened.”
Her hands flicked across the complex loops and weaves of his bonds. “Kate had it worse than I did, and the sound of a man's voice sets her off,” she said, and caught his eye. “But don't mistake that for weakness. It's a reaction. She's hurt. But if she feels threatened, she'll fight like mad.”
The ropes loosened enough for Kell to free his wrists. He rubbed them together as Laura worked on his feet.
“We're not your property,” she said. “You think you're being nice, offering to stay tied up. You aren't. It's insulting. Kate can handle herself, and she doesn't need you to patronize her. If more of those things show up, or god help should the rest of this group decide to drive back here, your gallant little offer might get all of us killed.”
The last rope fell away, and Laura offered a hand. “Don't get me wrong. I know it came from the right place. It's just the wrong idea.” She hauled Kell to his feet, nearly pitching herself over him with the effort.
They stood face to face, and Kell realized she was a fairly tall woman. The top of her head nearly reached his chin. Her eyes were a startling blue, the pale color of ice.
“We're thankful, mister mysterious K. But what Kate needs, and honestly what I need, isn't for you to tiptoe around us. If we're going to get back home, she and I will have to deal with things as they are.”
“I understand. For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I've been away from people--”
His brain, usually so quick, finally finished processing her words.
“Did you say home?”
Laura smiled. It was small and hesitant and there was iron behind it, but it was there.
Chapter Thirteen
Kate left to bring Kell's SUV back to the camp. Grateful for the help, he wished there was some way he could thank the woman without upsetting her more. While she was away he searched the remaining vehicles for clothes. Neither she nor Laura had much to wear, a thought that filled Kell with aftershocks of intense rage.
The marauders left them blankets in their trailers, as well as old, soiled dresses. Or maybe they were shifts. The garments were so tattered and dirty it was impossible to tell by sight alone.
Lacking other options, the women wore clothes pulled from the packs of the dead men aroun
d them. They didn't fit and neither relished the thought, but it was the only choice.
Kell began to pile supplies in the back of the pickup truck the women had chosen as their vehicle. They had agreed to strip everything of use from the place. There was a good chance the fuel would run out before the three of them were able to make it home.
“I still can't believe you've been out here on your own all this time,” Laura said as she brought a load of canned food over. “No one does that.”
Kell raised an eyebrow. “No one?”
She waved a hand. “Well, some people do. But not many. I can't imagine not having people at your back out here.”
His eyes fell on the trailers, now pushed to the edge of the camp. “I think you can.”
A flash of anger crossed her face. “Yeah. I guess you're right. But what I mean is some people live alone or just with their families, way away from everything. You say your place was within easy walking distance of a city.”
Kell laughed. “I wouldn't call the walk easy, but I get what you mean.”
Laura leaned against the truck. “You haven't asked about where we live other than to make sure there are people. You seemed so excited to find out we're from a community of survivors, but you don't want to know anything about it.”
Kell leaned against the truck himself, grateful for a moment to rest his leg. “It's not that I don't want to know. I just...” He struggled to put it into words. “I've been away from people for a long time. This is the third time I've talked to anyone since all this shit began. I can see Kate doesn't trust me, and you're cautious. You haven't told me where the place is. We're taking two different vehicles.”
Laura's face was even, giving away nothing.
